Free's just another word for nothing left but food.
I have a friend who would be a vegetarian, all other things being irrelevant. She would only eat fruits and vegetables and legumes and grains for all the usual reasons-the virtue of not killing animals, of not supporting cruel industries, of keeping good health and walking lightly on our planet. But other concerns trump these. I mean, we all have our priorities, and she falls into a little acknowledged category: the freeketarian. She would prefer a healthy vegetable stir fry or some hummus, but should bratwurst or chicken or sausage be offered, she's more than happy to eat flesh.
More people than know it are freeketarians. For this friend, it's not simply politeness that drives her gastronomic choices but economics. She gets by on as little money as she can in
***image1***
order to work as little as possible. For the rest of us the reasons vary. I have to admit, with both a newborn and a toddler in my house, I'll eat anything I don't have to cook.
But there's more to it than that. I say there's something delicious about food that is, well, found. And sort of snitched. Not like Cheetos found on the ground in the park (though my toddler would beg to differ) but found as in olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods and chocolate truffles at Wild Oats or even stale bread and pungent cheese or chips and salsa at any old market sample platter. If I'm hungry and haven't reached yet for my wallet and I come upon some free food on a platter, like a mirage in a desert, I'm digging in (and others are, too) and enjoying it more than if I had chosen it myself, stood in line holding it, paid for it and taken it home.
Is it related to the satisfaction farmers feel? A kind of living off the urban land, Santa Fe-style. The best guacamole I had came from avocados found by someone dumpster diving at an establishment that will not be named. Ten or 15 beautiful avocados, organic and perfectly ripe. Another woman who I think is just about the best dressed of all my friends shops only at thrift stores. Its a state of mind that you can get away with here more than other places. Living off the detritus and hand-me-downs of other people in a town with so much wealth is much better than in a struggling town-there really is a sort of "trickle-down" if you know where to look.
Freeketarianism embodies a certain mindset I love. My freeketarian friend is what can only be called "cheap," but in the nicest sort of way. Another friend used to kid her by asking her whose toothpaste she used. The answer? Her roommate's, of course. Everyone probably knows a cheap friend. This one of mine trumps most-She's lived an entire year as a rent-paying adult on a $3,000 income.
But here's the important point: She also manages to be quite generous with the spoils. She often entertains large groups of us. Sure, we eat simply; black beans and rice or hot posole with green chile and lots of condiments: grated cheese, sour cream, roasted sunflower seeds. There's most often a salad made from Farmer's Market greens or tender greens picked in her front yard, which sports an overflowing urban garden, and sprouts grown on the window sill. More than once she has shown up at my house with a bouquet of flowers she gathered on her way over, nabbing a spare bud or two from flowering bushes as she passes. Again, living off the land in style.
At my house, we run out to the store when we need leeks, even though we have onions. Or when my husband makes his pasta primavera alfredo but we have no fresh ciabatta or paisano. Our cupboards are full of every kind of grain imaginable stored in glass jars. We even have mung beans, for God's sake. We have four cans of pumpkin among a dozen other canned goods, and several kinds of cheese on hand most days, but when I get ready to cook, I usually head for the supermarket. I'm trying to change my ways as, like most people in our country, I flirt with shopaholism. We shop to feel good and well cared for and to reap the rewards of our hard work. But much of the time, we really don't need to and life might even be better, at least simpler, if we didn't.
Many of us have so much stuff stocked away, it's fair to call the kind of food found deep in the freezer and in a far corner of the cupboard "free," or at least found. One fall evening a few years ago, my freeketarian friend threw a party with 15 guests, a birthday party. After inviting everyone over, she decided she didn't really feel like going to the grocery store. So, there was grilled marinated pheasant, a bit tough but quite good, from a bird hunting expedition her roommate had gone on months before. A cake made with plain old flour and sugar and cocoa. And pasta tossed with a sauce made from butternut squash, butter, some brown sugar and a touch of cumin. This was melt-in-your-mouth good, so good I went out the next day and bought all the ingredients to replicate it.
